Information AboutBoot Camp |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BOOT CAMP | |
| 2006 software | |
| apple inc. software | |
| boot loaders | |
Boot Camp is a software made available by Apple Inc. that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 Home or Professional, or Windows Vista on Intel -based Macintosh computers. Boot Camp guides users through non-destructive re-partitioning (including resizing of an existing HFS+ partition, if necessary) of their Hard Drive s and creating a CD image with Device Driver s for Windows. In addition to device drivers for the hardware, the CD includes a Windows Control Panel applet for setting the primary operating system. OVERVIEW Boot Camp is not a Virtualization tool, which would allow the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems to run Concurrently ; instead, the computer must be Rebooted to use either operating system. Holding down the Option Key at startup will bring up the boot manager, allowing the user to choose which operating system to boot. When using a non Apple keyboard, the 'alt' key will usually perform the same action. Boot Camp requires that users upgrade the Firmware on early Intel-based Macintosh computers to the latest version, which includes the boot-loader and BIOS emulation module required to get the EFI based machines to boot legacy operating systems. Further, Apple does not officially support Boot Camp or Windows nor does it sell copies of Windows at its stores. The technology is currently Beta but will be included with Mac OS X V10.5 , Apple's upcoming operating system. REQUIREMENTS Apple's Boot Camp FAQ lists the following requirements:1
UNSUPPORTED DEVICES As of version 1.4, the driver disk created by Boot Camp allows Windows XP and Vista hardware support for the majority of a Mac's system components, but it does not currently support the following:
OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS The documentation from Apple states that Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista is requisite for a Boot Camp installation; however, it should be noted that other operating systems have been installed successfully. Other versions of Windows , such as Windows XP Professional X64 Edition , Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista 64-bit have been installed. Further, various Linux Distribution s have been installed, 2 as well as GNU OpenSolaris's Nexenta OS (Alpha 6 Elatte). 3 The biggest issue when installing operating systems not officially supported by Boot Camp is a lack of proper drivers. The driver issue is more difficult to overcome in non-Windows OSes since Apple writes its Boot Camp drivers specifically for 32-bit (x86) Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. 64-bit (x64) Microsoft Windows While it is possible to install 64-bit (x64) Windows operating systems on Intel Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo Processors , the Windows x64 OS encounters difficulties with ''full'' driver support in Boot Camp. The basic Hardware used in most Intel Macs have drivers available for various OSes, including x64 versions of Microsoft Windows. However Apple specific hardware such as the built in iSight camera, Apple bluetooth, Apple track pad as well as software enhancements like Apple keyboard mapping and the screen brightness utility packaged with Boot Camp are written solely for x86 versions of Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista and thus they do not work in the x64 versions of Windows. VERSION HISTORY
SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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